


Gravity

by Halequinne



Series: The Kick Start Chronicles [1]
Category: Bandom, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe - Killjoys, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-27 23:42:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/301360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Halequinne/pseuds/Halequinne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"My luck was running out... I can’t go back. I can’t. I won’t go back there. The engine spluttered and died next to me, barely five feet from my outstretched arm, although the dust in my eyes blinded me from my impending death."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gravity

There was a fucking vulture.

 _Can’t you at least wait ‘til I’m dead?_

I would have spoken the words aloud if my throat hadn’t dried out hours ago. The tattered purple and black scarf wrapped around my face no longer kept out the dust that swirled around me as I lay, facedown, in the dirt. The matching purple and black mask did little to shield my eyes either.

They would find me soon enough, Korse’s swarm of Draculoid minions. They would find me, rip the mask and scarf from me and they would know who I was. But I would be long dead by then. I’d only made it to Zone 2, but the warnings that I’d escaped only sounded once I was well into Zone 1, and I wasn’t on the main highway. So I had a decent head start. Not that it would help me.

Kick Start would die here. The only comfort being that it was on my own terms: out of the city and with my mask on. They wanted me to die in a sterile building in the heart of Battery City, strapped to a chair, covered in sensors and needles and electrodes, begging for my life – or my death – and bearing that name I had been given before I even knew what a name meant.

Names were something they could track you with and gain power over you. They could trace your history with your name; delve into your family and relationships to take what they need to break you. A name meant everything. So I chose to lose mine, taking on a new identity when I first ran to the Zones.

No longer the daughter of the deceased doctor and corporate chief executive officer, I became Kick Start: girl on the run from those who would take the colours away from me.

*

The rumble of an engine, still far off but closing in, caught my attention.

 _No, no, no, no, NO!_

I wouldn’t let them take me back there, not if it was the last thing I did. So, being too weak to fight them off, I played dead – fairly easily – and pressed my right cheek further into the ground below me, hoping that enough of the dust had settled over my form to blur me into the scenery, and that they didn’t come within range to take a closer look.

It was a strange rumble that the vehicle made. Not at all the sound of the shiny cars or bikes from the city I had become used to. _Maybe this Drac had a run-in with a Killjoy along the way_. I couldn’t dare to hope the Killjoy was still around to fight him off again.

If I had made it away from this, I’d always hoped to become a Killjoy – Zone Runners, as BL/ind called them – those who had forsaken the city and forgotten their names. Killjoys lived in colour and freedom, and there was definitely something beautifully freeing about being on the run.

*

My luck was running out. The rumbling – no, _rattling_ – engine came closer and closer. _I can’t go back_. It was right next to me. _I can’t. I won’t go back there_. The engine spluttered and died next to me, barely five feet from my outstretched arm, although the dust in my eyes blinded me from my impending death.

“Dead?”

 _What?_ Dracs never spoke. And Korse had better things to do than follow me himself.

“Looks like it, hang on.”

The car can’t have been from BL/ind.

“Come on, Poison, if the Dracs got ‘em they won’t be far away, we have to go.”

 _Poison?_ There was no way that was a given name, and that could only mean one thing. _Killjoys…_

Shoes scuffed the ground in front of my face before a moment of quiet.

“Can’t see breathing movement…”

The voices were male, that much I could tell, but I didn’t recognise them. And why would I anyway? I didn’t know anyone in the Zones anymore.

“Okay, come _on_ then. I repeat: _Dracs_.”

“Just hang on.”

A gloved hand pulled away my scarf, revealing my open mouth, slack jaw and dirty throat. He touched delicately at my neck before resting over my faint, but definitely _living_ pulse.

“They’re alive!” Cried the man next to me.

“What!?” Came more shouts from the direction of the car, and then the sound of more than one other person scrambling towards me, doors slamming.

The same gloved hands touched, just as gently, at the edges of my mask, and with the last ounce of life I had in me, I flinched away. I would not die without my mask. I hardly managed to move at all, but the man – Poison – felt it.

“My god, they’re awake!” He called, before I sensed him leaning close to me. “It’s okay. I’m a friend.”

And like I could do anything about it anyway.

He removed my mask and if there had been enough water in my body, I would have cried. Without that mask, the Dracs could identify me at a glance.

“Who is it?”

“No idea…” Poison whispered. “She must be new out here; no wanted posters yet.”

“She?”

“Yeah. Come on, let’s get her in the car. Kobra?”

“I’ll get the water.”

The gloved hands rolled me onto my back, and I could see the glare of the sun above me, but that was all before the hands slid under my back and legs to lift me and I passed out.

 _Surely dead now… And just when I found me some Killjoys._

Oh irony…

*

I was drowning.

I opened my eyes wide as I choked and spluttered.

“She’s awake!” A voice above me called as I was twisted onto my side, letting the water drain away from my windpipe. I tried to move, but couldn’t. I opened my mouth to scream, but couldn’t. No sound came out and my lungs felt like they were still lying in the desert.

“Don’t try to talk…” A voice by my head spoke. My frantic, wide eyes stared up to the source.

It was a man, his lank dark hair framing a round face, a full face mask pulled up to sit on the back of his head, glimpses of tattoos visible on his neck. His hands were brushing dust away from my face and out of what was left of my blue hair. The blue curls used to fall down my back on the odd occasion that I would let them out of their restraints, but one of the first ways to begin to break you in the Better Living labs was to crop your hair. Shear it unevenly to the scalp.

The man whose lap my head lay on lifted me a little, pressing a tin cup to my lips. Now conscious, I gulped down the water, nearly choking on it anyway.

 _Oh god, where am I? Where are they taking me?_

As though reading my thoughts, a voice came from the other side of my head.

“We’re nearly there.”

I looked over towards the sound, but couldn’t find a face.

That’s when I noticed the same rattling engine noises from when I was face down in the dust. I was in the car. These men were the Killjoys who had found me.

I tried to speak again, but only a rasp of “Who?” managed to scrape it’s way out of my throat.

“Shh.” The voice above me said, and a gloved hand – different to the one from the desert though – touched the side of my face, wiping traces of water away that had missed my mouth. “We’re Killjoys too.”

 _Like I was one of them…_

“I’m Fun Ghoul. That” he pointed at the man at my feet – his hair long, aviator sunglasses covering his eyes, and a blue ray gun in hand, resting against the sill of the open window in waiting, “is Jet Star. In the front is Kobra Kid,” a man with a blond quiff of hair turned in the front seat of the car to face me slightly, his red ray gun pointed in waiting out of his window too. “And Party Poison.”

 _Poison… From before._

The red head was driving, and simply raised his right hand to wave at me, eyes not deviating from the road even as his vibrant hair blew in his face.

Fun Ghoul pressed the cup to my lips again and I drank what remained. I had to get my voice back, to tell them something about me… Something important. Something that put us all in danger.

“Who are you?” He then asked, tentatively, still unsure if I could – or should – speak.

“Ki–” I began, but no sound came out and a coughing fit ensued.

Once it subsided, Poison handed a pen back, and Fun Ghoul nodded, going through his jacket pockets, triumphantly revealing a cigarette paper. He wriggled the pen into my fingers and placed the paper against the hard shell of my mask that now sat on my stomach. The muscles in my hand found it hard to grip the pen, but I managed to hold it oddly, but steady and scrawl _Kick Start_ on the tiny paper.

“Kick Start?”

I blinked with the smallest of nods.

“Well, Miss Kick Start, we’ll get you back in good shape and then sort out what happens from there.”

I managed to swing my right hand over, still holding the pen, and grab the top of his left arm. “Wait–” I croaked out.

“Okay we’re here.” Poison announced, pulling the car around behind an old, small building and killing the engine. Fun Ghoul was looking down at me again though. So I took the paper again and drew a small square around an asterisk, then looked up to Fun Ghoul with pleading eyes. Pleading not only for myself, but for them too.

“Oh my god…”

“What is it, Ghoul?” Poison immediately turned around in his seat, staring at the two of us, Kobra Kid and Jet Star quickly following suit.

“Sh-she…” He stuttered a little, in shock. “She’s been chipped.”

*

There was swearing and… Well, mostly just swearing all around me. Except for Poison, he was silent, staring at me, as the others shouted at him.

He cut everyone off by opening his door and climbing out, slamming it shut behind him. He opened Jet Star’s door and leaned in as Ghoul flicked at his lighter and burned the small paper that held my name.

“Come on, get her inside.”

“What!?” Kobra Kid screamed at him. “She’s _chipped_ , Poison! They’ll track her right here!”

“Kobra,” Poison’s voice was low and calm, thick with given authority over this group.

“He’s right, man. They’ll be on us before dawn.”

“Then we’ll leave before dawn, Jet.”

My eyes flicked frantically between them. I knew what _should_ happen to me: they _should_ leave me in the run down building and keep driving, drive until they run out of gas or can no longer keep their eyes open. I wasn’t going to take anyone down with me.

“Go,” I rasped out. “You can’t–”

“Shh,” Ghoul silenced me again. “Jet got mine out, he can get yours too.”

My eyes dragged over to the longhaired man and watched as he glared at Ghoul, obviously not as confident in his skills.

“Yours was easy. It was early on when they didn’t put them very deep.” He turned back to the redhead. “Hers will be one like that kid out on Route Guano had… We can’t keep her around.”

And I agreed with him. I didn’t know who the kid he mentioned was, but I’m guessing he didn’t make it. I knew where my chip was, and it wasn’t exactly deep, but it was next to my spine.

“We’re _not_ leaving her.” Poison replied sternly, and I looked up at him like he was crazy but he ignored my stare. “Ghoul, can you block the transmission for a few hours?”

I felt him shrug against me. “I’ll have to see what we’ve got, but I might be able to throw it for a while?”

“That’s perfect. As long as they’re not looking here.” He held out his arms, beckoning for the two men I was lying on to pass me to him.

*

“Eat.”

It was the first thing Kobra had ever said to me, and he didn’t say it with a smile. He wanted me gone.

“Thank you,” I croaked as he handed me a tin of what looked like refried beans but smelled infinitely worse. There were no utensils, but as I watched, the Killjoys around me just dug in with their fingers. I slipped my jacket back on before I began to eat, the sun had set and the Zones cooled off quickly. The old Zone 3 gas station we were holed up in had been like a sauna not forty minutes ago and I was almost beginning to wish the scorching heat back. Almost.

I heard a noise of triumph come from the opposite corner to where Kobra and I sat on the floor in silence, against a wall. I looked up to the table where Jet and Poison poured through a box of objects and argued, then down to the floor where Ghoul was getting up, a wide grin on his face and something small and dirty but solid in one hand, a brown leather belt in the other.

He stood before Kobra and me and I looked up.

“Well come on, get up, little Kick Start.”

I licked off the food I’d scraped out of the tin – it tasted about as bad as it smelled, but it was good to have something in my stomach again – and took a sip of water before getting shakily to my feet.

“Who are you calling little?” I asked with a rasp, grabbing hold of the wall to steady myself, my legs not entirely working again yet. Ghoul was the same height as me, almost exactly, but looked at me as though I was a child rather than the twenty-four year old I was.

He ignored my comment completely and I decided height might have been a touchy subject for him.

“Okay, Kick – can we call you Kick?” I nodded to him with a smile. “Okay, Kick, do you know where your chip is?”

I nodded again, turning to face the wall and lifted the back of my shirt up enough to expose the tiny scarred mark just to the right of my spine at the top of my lumbar vertebrae: a square with an asterisk in the middle. I pointed, in case he hadn’t seen; it was a very small mark.

I heard him wince a little and I remembered he’d once had one of these too – he too remembered how painful the insertion process was. I wondered where his had been, and how Jet had removed it, but now was neither the time nor the place. He’d taken his gloves off and his hands were cold when they came into contact with my skin, sending chills over my body.

“Sorry,” Ghoul muttered. “But this will be even colder.”

I sucked air in hard through my teeth as he pushed the unknown metal object against my back, right where the chip was, and held it there as he wrapped the belt around me to keep the device in place. It hummed softly there, more a sensation than a sound.

“There.” His rough fingers pulled my shirt back down again, but dragging slowly down the skin on my back as they did so. “Done.”

I mentally shrugged the touch off. The Zones were full to the brim with sexual tension and any amount of contact provided some relief. I probably would have appreciated it if I had already been here much longer myself. I’d even noticed Kobra eyeing my exposed waist as Ghoul attached the device.

“So what will that do?” I asked, turning back to him. It was so much easier, being able to talk again, even if it did hurt.

The corners of his lips stretched up into a smile; he was proud of himself. “It’ll block your signal for about three hours – if I got it right – and then it’ll throw your signal as far as it can. The Dracs will think you managed to block it and run from where they last tracked you. In three hours they’ll assume your blocker failed and you’re out in Zone 4 somewhere.” He was definitely proud of himself, and for good reason. “It should give us… Two days, tops, to get it out of you.”

I shook my head slightly, amazed. “You’re a genius, Ghoul.”

But my hopeful thoughts were cut off.

“It may not be long enough.” Poison had tuned into the conversation, his hair falling in his face, but the concerned look still visible in his eyes. “We don’t have any tools even close to what Jet will need.”

I sensed Kobra get up beside me. “Well we’re not keeping her any longer.” He spoke as though I wasn’t there and I could have sworn he was about to stamp his foot. “As soon as that diversion signal dies, she’s gone.”

I understood completely, but his words stung. Looking around at the others I could see they all agreed, but with different levels of enthusiasm. Poison was glaring at the skinny blond next to me, Jet was nodding without expression, and Ghoul looked hurt but kept his mouth shut. Kobra sank back to the floor and his dinner without another word, nor look in my direction.

The conversation was over and everyone went back to their food, Poison and Jet beginning to talk quietly about items they needed – for what I now knew to be to help me free myself from this tracker. I sat slowly on the ground again, careful not to disturb my new appendage.

Without looking at the man next to me, I spoke to him. “I’m okay with you guys leaving if my chip can’t be removed…” My voice was quiet, forgiving.

“Did I ever ask,” he turned to face me, his eyes like daggers, “what _you_ thought about anything?”

I flinched at his words. “I…”

“I didn’t. And I don’t want to know. You’re putting us all in danger just by being here.” His voice began to rise. “If anything happens to P– to _any_ of us because of that fucking transmitter, I swear I’ll kill you myself.” It was then I noticed that his red gun was in his hand, twirling by the trigger loop around his index finger.

“I… I’m…” I began again, but Poison’s voice spoke over me.

“Shit, Kobra, just simmer the fuck down alright?”

Kobra clenched his chiselled jaw and glared at the man, not in the least bit impressed with being scolded like a child. But he put his gun away without snapping back and went back to eating and ignoring me.

 _Poison. He almost said “if anything happens to Poison”…_

*

Someone was shaking me.

“Kick Start, get up. Kick?”

Dragging my eyes open, I saw Ghoul leaning over me, his hand grasping my shoulder. I’d fallen asleep.

“Hgn? My turn to watch?”

He shook his head, grabbing my hands and helping me to my feet. “No, we’re heading out. Poison and Kobra are getting anxious. It’s been too quiet.”

I was wide-awake. In my experience, quiet was good, but too quiet was worse than loud. If you got through a whole night in the Zones without seeing a Drac, your luck was about to run out – if you weren’t already caught up in an ambush. That’s how they got me in the first place…

My steps were quick out the door, heading for the car – what I now noted to be an old Trans-Am, painted with the old American flag and a spider sprawled on the hood – and I scrambled in, sitting between Ghoul and Jet in the back to keep watch out the shot-out rear window.

Not that I could help much if I did spot anything though; I hadn’t managed to get a ray gun since Korse and his team took my purple-painted one back in Battery City. I needed a vending machine and some paint, and soon.

It was still dark, only the slightest hints of grey at the horizon, and the sound of the Trans Am spluttering to life thrummed in my ears but was swallowed by the silence of the desert. I was flung into the back of the seat from my kneeling position, facing back, as Poison stepped on the gas heading away from the main highways, further into Zone 3.

“Where are we going?” I asked, not knowing if there would be an answer, let alone if I would actually be given it. So it surprised me when Jet answered from next to me, his eyes not leaving their search out the left window.

“I don’t have the right tools to get that chip out, but there’s a diner that’s always stayed fairly stocked with utensils. It’s well off the main routes so I guess not that many motorbabies go passed it.” He flicked a quick smirk at me before eyeing the desert again. “Kitchen utensils are always better for surgery than car tools and parts.”

I felt myself pale.

 _Surgery…_ I’d been so caught up with being with the Killjoys and getting rid of the tracking chip that I’d completely bypassed the actual process of getting it out. There was no anaesthetic in the Zones. _Could get someone to knock me out first… Sure Kobra would do it happily_.

*

 _Oh god, oh god, oh god…_

“Are you sure this is the best way?” I asked for the third time, my face pressed into the warm tiled floor. I felt a hand run softly through my cropped hair, trying to sooth me as I looked longingly out the window at the evening sun, as though planning an escape.

“It’s the only way, Kick.” He sighed. “It’ll be over soon.”

It was Ghoul that had spoken. He was sitting straddled on my back, holding onto my shoulders, while Poison sat on my backside and Kobra held my legs, all to stop me from flinching. I was face down on the floor of the abandoned diner – not at all comforted by the fact that the neon letters N and R had been shot down, so only DI E was left – as Jet Star prepared to carve into my back to dig out the tiny piece of metal lodged in there.

He was cleaning the utensils as best he could as I spoke, and thank fuck I couldn’t see _what_ he was planning on using.  
I turned my attention to the man at my shoulders. “How much does it hurt, Ghoul?” I asked weakly, hoping in vain that only he had heard me.

He drew in a breath. Not a good sign.

“Well, Jet used different tools for me – these ones are smaller, so that’s good. But mine was just in my arm, it was before Korse realised we could get them out.”

“So…?” I pressed, needing rather than wanting an answer. “Scale from one to ten?”

“One to ten? I imagine… probably a thirteen.”

My eyes squeezed shut and took in several deep breaths. At least I knew, from my time in the BL/ind labs, that I could handle pain. Ghoul rubbed slowly and gently at the back of my neck to soothe me, and it was then that I noticed Kobra’s thumbs pressing into the base of my calves, but more so the already firm pressure of Poison’s fingertips on my waist, moving slightly. Or was that just my imagination?

Maybe I had been out here long enough.

Or just hadn’t been away long enough.

“Okay, Kick,” Jet’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Take a deep breath…”

I did so, obediently.

“Now, let it out and relax as much as you can.”

I concentrated on relaxing every muscle I could as I felt the Kobra, Poison and Ghoul tighten their grip, and let out the breath shakily.

“Argh!” _Shit fuck goddamn motherfucker!_

The knife was hot as it sliced into me, my scream hitchhiking on the end of my outgoing breath. My body tried to squirm without my permission, but the men around me were much stronger than I had guessed. I could feel it digging around inside me. _Worse than when it was put in…_

*

 _Ugh_.

“Poison, she’s waking up!”

“Good. Give her a minute, then we’ll go.”

It was hot, late morning hot. I cracked open my eyes to see Jet next to my head and Poison standing with Kobra in the far corner. I couldn’t see Ghoul, but could hear movement behind me.

Not wanting to move yet, I lay on my side, watching the redhead finish his conversation and stride slowly over to me, a slight swing in his hips.

 _Definitely been here too long_.

“How you feeling, Kick Start?”

“I passed out?” I croaked up at him and he simply nodded, expressionless. I tilted my head to look at Jet. “Did you get it?”  
Taking off his sunglasses, he looked down at me with a smile. “I did.”

“You probably shouldn’t move,” Poison began. “But you’re gonna have to. The diversion signal just died so BL/ind knows we’re here. We’ve gotta get back off the grid.”

Jet climbed to his feet and the two of them helped me up. I only cried out once, then sunk my teeth firmly into my bottom lip to distract my brain from my back. It didn’t work very well.

“Your mask,” came Kobra’s voice – I hadn’t heard him approach, but he held my familiar purple mask and scarf out to me and I took them with a small smile that he didn’t return.

Ghoul led the way out to the Trans Am, but as the two men holding me up helped me to the car so I could stand and lean against it, I saw him drop something small into the dust.

Next thing, all four Killjoys were lined up in front of the dropped item, ray guns drawn and aimed.

After shooting repeatedly at the ground, they turned back to me.

“So, little Killjoy” Poison smirked from behind his mess of hair, his face dusty, and I smiled back – mostly at being referred to as a Killjoy myself. He nodded to the empty holster on my thigh. “Let’s get you a gun.”

My smile broadened as he turned to the driver’s door, swinging it open and climbing in. Jet helped me back into the car, into my position looking out the rear window from the middle space.

Only as we drove away did I see the mark left on the ground by the laser blasts: what must have been my chip was in the middle of the left eye of the Better Living Industries smiley face, burned into the ground along with the word “blind”.


End file.
